How Computer Science Became a Boys’ Club

It’s kind of disappointing to me that this article will generate a lot of discussion, because it’s actually a pretty shallow retelling of the folklore that doesn’t really add anything to the discussion. I’d love a deeper dive into what exactly happened during this time period, but I think a lot of the discussion up to this point has failed to provide adequate context, sources, or even just anecdotes to help paint the picture.

I also want to understand what the discipline of programming even was “prior to the 1960s and 1970s.” I don’t have a concept for it, but I can only imagine it is largely foreign to me. Is there any lasting artifacts of this era of programming? I suspect that the rapid evolution of the discipline probably caused it to go through more demographic shifts than just this one, too.

I find reading about the history of computer science fascinating. Stuff like folklore.org is great. I would really like that kind of dive into this era, even if maybe it was less glorified. Certainly there had to be some interesting anecdotes…

Unfortunately, all we ever get is this same story, which all we can really do is take at face value. I get that the point of this is to be a story about gender (in)equality, but reducing it to just that is a bit disappointing, and it’s unclear what we can learn from it, other than “it’s bad that this happened!”

One thing I've never seen any research on is how much timing affects what fields boys and girls go into.

Girls generally mature faster than boys, both physically and cognitively. But the standard school schedule is the same for both boys and girls.

For me and the other boys I knew who went into STEM fields the school schedule fit well with our maturation rate. By the time we had enough school to start to be able to get serious about our STEM interests we were still immature enough to mostly do things as individuals or with one or two close friends. We still thought like children. Hole up in your room all weekend like an anti-social hermit trying to get a homemade radio to work? No problem for a boy at that age.

By that time the girls had matured enough to be thinking a lot more like adults. They were much more aware of the importance of group status and politics, and were spending the time we boys would have spent on individual nerd stuff dealing with advancing their position in the group. They didn't have time to be anti-social nerds like the boys did even if they were interested in STEM and had shown an aptitude for it.

Unfortunately this will become accurate history even though it is not accurate at all.

In the 1960s and 70s: “Aspiring male professionals wanted in, but they didn’t want to be associated with lowly coding clerks. To elevate themselves, they emphasized the esoteric nature of their discipline, deriving professional authority from individualism, personal creativity, and an obscure, almost arcane, skill set.”

Does it at all matter that by the 60s and 70s the complexity of programming and software was immensely larger than programming in the 40s?

The authors seems confused, comparing two unrelated activities merely because we refer to them by the same name.

I would love to read a serious analysis of this issue. I was let down with this article that seems to answer the headline with:

Companies selected candidates using aptitude tests that favored “antisocial, mathematically inclined, and male”

No evidence or reasoning why is provided for any claim.

Are we comparing 60s to 70s and projecting into present?

Is there a similar article on how truck-driving became male-dominated? Or garbage-collecting?

Nursing and teaching in the U.S. are overwhelmingly female. Is that an exclusionary “girls’ club” as well?

More baseless gender-bating nonsense. Nothing to do with technology or "hacker" news. Just some useless trivia editorialized to paint the "MEN BAD" narrative. Can't believe how the quality of front-page stories has deteriorated over the years on HN.

“one might argue that computer programmers, rather than being insufficiently masculine, have elevated the performance of masculinity to an extreme.”

See also, the 10x programmer, who invariably lives a lifestyle totally incompatible with wide ranging interests or family, and is lionised (by some) for it.